IN 1987, Kees Klok, sixty years old and myself, Gay Klok, who had hit the Big Fifty, made a decision that changed our life then and is changing our life now, ten remarkable years later. Since seeing that tiny advertisement in the local newspaper offering “a life time opportunity to purchase a magnificent older style Colonial farmhouse” we have built a six-acre ornamental garden with Chinese, American, Japanese and European rare plants intermingling with Australian flora.
The “magnificent farmhouse” was a typical Tasmanian middle-class farmhouse with a bullnose verandah painted shocking pink, an outside bathroom, a kitchen with a wood burning stove, and a verandah room with fishing net hanging in lieu of panes of glass to keep out the birds. The advertisement continued “This four bedroom large homestead offers you a large apple orchard [sic] and a lifetime supply of firewood, bushland, the most astounding water views you could imagine!” The large apple orchard consisted of 2,000 apple trees from which Kees, a structural engineer, worked out that more than one million apples would emerge every year.So they do and the parrots, blue fairy wrens, blackbirds, jays, silver eyes, rosellas, possums, ducks, peafowl, bandicoots, potoroos and wallabies all love Gay and Kees very much for them when they flock into the orchards every year for a free feed. The “lifetime supply of wood” is forty acres of semi-rain forest where the Manferns, Dicksonia Antartica grow lushly amongst Stringy Bark Eucalyptus, hundreds of Acacias [wattle] and Callistemons.
The “For Sale” notice ended by stating, “This property is excellent value for money also offers classic outbuildings including three picket houses.” The “picket houses” were three apple pickers’ one roomed huts where the casual labourers had wiled away the long, quiet evenings by drawing all kinds of interesting graffiti on the unlined walls. In the ten years up to 1997, the garden has matured with amazing rapidness. Seedlings, that were one to two feet high babies when planted, are now teenagers twenty to thirty feet in height. The Home Orchard Garden has become one of the largest cottage gardens around. The ornamental garden, including the home made pond area, covers an area of approximately six acres.
Most of the Primulas are the candelabra sort with whirls of flowers ascending the stem in shades of orange, red, pink and yellow. Some grow to one foot high with seven or more circles of colour.Above the perennials are flowering trees and shrubs. The collection of Acers growing in various parts of the garden is large and varied. One of my favourites is Acer Senkaki, the fine coral bark Japanese maple. The vivid scarlet branches are such a
welcome slash of colour in Winter and the glow of orange leaves is wonderful in Autumn.They make splendid accents within the garden scene. I grow them, oddly enough, within my general beds.
Magnolias and their sisters Michelias revel in the conditions at “Kibbenjelok”. The magnificent Michelia Doltstopa’s large brown, furry buds cheer me up so much from the middle of winter and when Spring comes, the large white, softly perfumed blooms herald in the new Spring. Across the grass path, the showy Camellias challenge the Michelia with their huge blooms of red, white or pink. The Magnolia stellata, so useful for smaller gardens stand up to the changeable weather of early Spring, after all, their skirts are already cut by crimping shears. In 1996, seven years after it was planted as a very small tree, Magnolia campbellii “Charles Raffil” bloomed with twenty-seven beautiful, dinner plate sized pale pink blooms. They are notoriously very slow to flower, normally taking fifteen to twenty years to gladden your heart and amaze your eyes.
A large collection of rare conifers is used to give interest when all else is gathering breath [including the gardeners] for a very brief period in Winter. We have a large collection of
rare specie Rhododendrons, including the tender plants sp. Nuttalli [Dalhousiae] with chartreuse yellowish-green with a pink blush perfumed flowers, subsp. Lindelii, waxy white tulip shaped bells, “Fragrantissimum”, perfuming the whole garden and the huge leaved Asiatic tree Rhododendrons to mention only a few amongst the hundreds growing in the garden at “Kibbenjelok”.
Formality was introduced when we created two heart shaped Rose beds [one for Kees! and one for me!] which are formed by using Buxus {Box} shaped into little balls surrounding Rosa specie and old fashioned English Heritage roses.
The building of our paradise has given us great happiness and satisfaction. We have been bone weary at times, worried on other occasions and angry when the weather turns nasty on our “Open Days” but we have never regretted that momentous decision we took on that sunny Winter’s day. This is the story of the creation of a large folly from a little dream or, is it the other way around, the creation of a little folly from a large dream?
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